Part 4

“That!” said Gypsy, pointing upward.

She shifted her faggot and gazed at the roof, which bore this legend in luminous white paint:

THERE IS NO TRUTH IN THE RUMOUR THAT THIS UGLY IF UTILITARIAN ROOF IS TO BE REPLACED WITH A BEAUTIFUL THATCH

“Why did you do that?” asked Ginger.

“I didn’t,” said Gypsy.

“Who did, then?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” said Gypsy.

It was only the beginning. Soon his other roofs began to be adorned with similar statements. A shelter in Kensington inquired:

WHO HAS BEEN CIRCULATING THE FICTION THAT OLD WEATHER-STAINED TILES ARE THE LATEST FASHION FOR CABMEN? THEY ARE NOT!

And a Canteen in Putney asserted:

THE REPORT IS ABSOLUTELY UNFOUNDED THAT BEFORE LONG THIS UNPREPOSSESSING HUT WILL RESEMBLE THE LOG-CABINS OF THE EARLY SETTLERS

These suggestions, and others equally attractive, were gradually being negatived on iron roofs in every quarter of London.

If Gypsy and Ginger were mysteries to the Cricket-Clubs and Flower-sellers, the unknown Luminous Painter was a mystery to them. But at last they discovered him.

They had taken half an hour off one night to look at the pattern of the moon on the river, and they found him standing in the middle of Westminster Bridge. He was very tall and lean, and wore a tight frock-coat that was quite a good green. It had once been rather a poor black. His soft felt hat was also green, and even he did not know what its first colour was. When they caught sight of him he was engaged in removing the hat from his head with an exquisite gesture, and bowing right and left with an unexampled grace. But for themselves there was nobody else on the bridge, yet he performed his courtly salute again and again, north and south, east and west. His deportment was as expressive as it was beautiful; it expressed deference without humility, airiness without impudence, and it paid a compliment not only to the recipient, but to the executor, of the bow.

“What _are_ you doing?” cried Ginger, advancing with an involuntary curtsey.

The individual almost swept the ground with his hat.

“Madam,” he said, sweetly, “I am Bowing to the Circumstances.”

“What Circumstances?” inquired Ginger.

“My own Circumstances, madam. They require it of me frequently. They require it, alas! of many people. But it is one of the Lost Accomplishments of the age. One of the many. These things were once done with a grace----!”

He dusted and replaced his hat. “They stand saluted!” he said.

“I don’t believe that Circumstances which require bowing to _ought_ to be saluted,” objected Ginger. “Why do you bow to them?”

“In acknowledgment, dear madam,” said the shabby gentleman, “that I am not what I was.”

“What were you?” asked Ginger.

“A Professor, madam.”

“And what are you?” asked Gypsy.

“At the moment, sir, I am Contradictor of Rumours.”

“You contradict them on my roofs!” cried Gypsy.

“I have that honour, sir,” said the ex-Professor.

“It was you,” said Gypsy, “who contradicted the rumour that the Kilburn Tennis-club was to re-roof itself in Horsham Slate?”

“The most beautiful of all roofings, sir. Yes, it was I.”

“It was you,” said Gypsy, “who refuted the suggestion that the Noncomformist Chapels should return to Ancient Greece----”

“In the matter of architecture, sir. That also was I.”

“It was you,” continued Gypsy, “who denied the unfounded report that the tops of the Whitechapel Shelters were to be converted into Hanging-Gardens.”

“Myself, sir, and no other.”

“Who said there _were_ to be Hanging-Gardens in Whitechapel?” asked Gypsy.

“Nobody, sir.”

“Then why do you say there are _not_ to be?”

“Well, it’s true, sir, isn’t it?”

“It’s so true,” said Gypsy, “that why waste paint on it?”

“Because,” said the ex-Professor, “no truth can resist persistent denial for ever. That is--yes, I fear I am getting mixed. But have you not observed how the newspapers will frequently force a statement on you, or at least lodge a suspicion in you, by contradicting some rumour of which you’ve never heard until they say it isn’t true? The affirmation was negative, the denial is positive. When they’ve denied it long enough, day after day, in every column from the Leaders to the Book Reviews, it becomes an unshakeable fact. I am at present devoting my life to establishing rumours by denying them. Once public opinion swallows them, the rest is automatic. I have energetically denied the rumour, for instance, of a Red Noah’s Ark in Bermondsey. It would cheer Bermondsey greatly. And before long I really hope to see in Whitechapel those Hanging Gardens, which, as I have repeatedly stated, are not for one instant under consideration by anybody.”

“What a tophole idea!” said Gypsy.

“The credit is not all mine, sir,” said the ex-Professor. “Let us give the newspapers their due. Contradicting the Rumour is one of the more modern accomplishments, and smacks of modern manners; in other days we should have preferred Dallying with the Notion, but we cannot look for the old-world polish in the newspaper of to-day. If it has not the culture of the Eighteenth Century, it does not lack dexterity; and in the art of Forcing the Statement it is as deft as a conjuror with a pack of cards. Yet--a vulgar art!” The ex-Professor sighed. “I never taught it myself.”

“What _did_ you teach?” asked Ginger curiously.

“A hundred activities and accomplishments which are now treated in the most perfunctory fashion, madam. Have you ever, may I ask, Risen to the Occasion?”

“Never,” said Ginger.

“I’ve tried to,” said Gypsy. “It seldom came off.”

“And why? You had never studied it, sir. It is an acquired art which in theory should be taught in the schoolroom, in practice in the gymnasium. How,” he continued with fire, “without our Text-books and Classes can we perfect ourselves in the arts which make life replete with _finesse_? How many of us are conversant with the most graceful way of Receiving an Impression? For the most part we Receive our Impressions anyhow, at haphazard. We should Receive them as we would our guests. Again which of us can really felicitously Rejoice in the Name of--Alfred, or Ernest, or Harriet, as the case may be? The human being does not live who cannot be said to Rejoice in some such Name. But does he? Does he, in fact, know how? Of course he does not; he was never taught how. It took me years of toil before I could Rejoice in the Name of Valentine. My first attempts were gauche. But I succeeded at last.”

“_We_ Rejoice in _our_ Names,” said Ginger, and told him them.

His eye brightened. “Who would not Rejoice in such Names? There is a tongue in the cheek of either of them. But I take it they are not Baptismal?”

“Does that affect the question?” asked Gypsy.

“To a certain extent (and let us not be callous--some Questions are so easily Affected, although others, of sterner calibre, have to be Begged),” said the ex-Professor. “No, it is chiefly in the Names bestowed on us by M or N, that we are said to Rejoice. It can often only be done with an effort.

“What we need,” said the ex-Professor ardently, “is expert guidance on all those subtleties which we are asked to do by intuition: as though one could Jazz, or Throw the Discobolus, by intuition! Repeatedly the Social Code requires you to Contain Yourself, a thing possibly to be achieved by a stern suppressive course of Somebody’s System, but whose? What branch of physical training will develop in us the muscular fitness needed in Exercising the Prerogative and Adhering to the Principle? What Polytechnic offers us a course of instruction in Drawing the Comparison, Creating the Precedent, Improving the Hour, Making Good? Who will educate us in the fine shades of those more negative accomplishments, Ignoring the Facts, Withdrawing the Confidence, and Leaving Well Alone? And It! there’s so much to be done with It! A three years’ course might be devoted alone to Turning It Over, Letting It Slide, Cutting It Fine, Making the Best of It, Overdoing It, Chancing It, Chucking It....

“I look forward to the day when these things shall be the staple subjects of our Board Schools, Intellectually and Athletically; when, after a concentrated hour spent in class Accounting for Tastes or Changing the Opinion, the children shall troop jollily across the asphalte playground Leaping at Conclusions, Dodging the Question, and Casting the Doubt. Here a group of merry girls are Going to Extremes, yonder a band of breathless boys are Stopping at Nothing. Further off the School Glutton is greedily Eating his Words or Chewing the Cud of Thought, while the School Miser is bent on Doing It for Two Pins and Profiting by the Example. In a secluded corner, alas! the School Bully will frequently be found Twisting a Meaning, Stifling an Oath, or Strangling a Conviction, for boys will be boys, and Human Nature does not change. And perhaps it never will until an accomplishment common to half mankind has been eliminated, and we cease to be born past-masters and mistresses in Believing the Worst.”

“Don’t be downhearted,” said Ginger optimistically; “there’s always the other half of mankind, you know.”

“I am indebted to you, dear madam,” said the ex-Professor, “for reminding me of it.”

“Used you really to teach all these things?” asked Gypsy.

“For a short while only. I endeavoured to interest the Board of Education, but forty years later the War came along too soon. Instantly all the Boards in England became exclusively composed of Recruiting-Sergeants, to whom but one of my arts appealed--that of Calling up the Old Reminiscence. It was my ruin.”

He sighed; then hastily bowed right and left once more, and rose up smiling.

“We waste time,” he said. “We might have been Contradicting Rumours this hour gone by. Believe me, the roofs of corrugated London shall yet be beautified.”

“And why should it stop there?” cried Ginger with enthusiasm. “Once we begin to Contradict Rumours, there’s simply no limit to what we can deny. When the Freedom of the Flowers is fully established I shall take this up with you. Why, in time we might reform all London!”

Ginger was as good as her word. And as her word was always good enough for Gypsy, he added his efforts to hers in Contradicting Rumours with all his might. One by one they enlisted their friends in the scheme, at first directing their efforts, but soon leaving them to their own devices. Except Rags, who followed Ginger about like a little dog. The wires from the released roses had all been given to Rags, who swore he had a use for them; and he evidently had, for he got a brand-new pair of second-hand boots on the strength of them. So he had no compunction in letting him tramp the streets with her at night.

Her first idea was to do something for the Orphans. As she said shuddering to the little man, “Those hats, Rags!”

So one morning London awoke to find placards to this effect on every Orphan Asylum in and round the town:

WE CANNOT IMAGINE WHENCE THE FABRICATION AROSE THAT ORPHANS ARE TO WEAR LIBERTY HATS THIS SUMMER

This idea was presented daily to London just at the moment when she had begun to digest the possibility of a substitute for Corrugated Iron. Indeed, some rather beautiful timbered roofs were already under way in Hackney, and Turnham Green was discussing the relative merits of thatch _versus_ tiles. Whitechapel too had cottoned to the notion of Hanging Gardens. The Cabmen’s Shelters were becoming positive bowers, as the ex-Professor reported with great satisfaction at the Weatherhouse, where everybody assembled regularly at daybreak to discuss the next night’s plan of action.

Ginger was overjoyed. “What a delightful sight it must be,” she said, “to see the Cabmen hanging in the Gardens, as they drink their gingerbeer.”

“And dream of Babylon,” added Gypsy.

“_Quite_ so,” said the Taxi-Man.

The scheme succeeded from the first. Ginger and Rags had not much trouble with the Orphans. They had not even to wait for Public Opinion; the Orphan Asylums themselves soon saw no reason why the above Fabrication should remain one.

On the day the Orphans began to troop through London in graceful hats with coloured scarves and happy faces, the Public was confronted everywhere with this announcement (Gypsy’s):

NO! IT IS _NOT_ TRUE THAT THE MEMBERS OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE ARE GIVING A BEANFEAST TO ALL THE POOR CHILDREN IN BETHNAL GREEN

This took more doing. But nine days of incessant repudiation got on the Members’ nerves. They began to find it difficult to look strangers in the eye. They began to observe how studiously their friends refrained from references to Bethnal Green in their presence. They began to feel that they were shabby fellows. And hang it all! _why_ wasn’t it true that they were giving a Beanfeast to the Children of Bethnal Green? why _shouldn’t_ they give a Beanfeast if they wanted to?

In the end Bethnal Green got such a Beanfeast as it had never dreamed of in all its young life.

After this the surprises came fast and thick. Under the obstinate influence of contradiction, the owners of almond and pink may trees in red-brick houses transferred these voluntarily to the front gardens of dwellers in white or grey stone houses. The aesthetic advantage would not be visible till next spring, but London was beginning to be endowed with a sense of vision.

There were also immediate reforms in the front gardens, whose beds defied at last the rigid and time-dishonoured conscription of marguerite, geranium, and lobelia. It was the dawn of a floral era wilder, more exquisite, and much more experimental.

And Society ceased to wear Humming-birds in its Hats--this was perhaps Ginger’s greatest triumph. It was a stiff battle. After heavy nights of repudiation she would come back to the Weatherhouse such a rag, that even her devoted little follower couldn’t have sold her at a penny a pound. But she won at last. She had two strong posters on the subject; one denying strenuously that feathers were old-fashioned, the other ridiculing the suggestion that a strip of gaily-embroidered house flannel, frayed and fringed, was Millinery’s _Dernier Cri_. It attracted the attention of LOUISE, who immediately exhibited a model on these lines in her windows. The Duchesses fell to it, and the Humming-Birds were saved.

As I said, Gypsy and Ginger allowed their friends to follow their own fancies.

WHAT MISINFORMED PERSON HAS BEEN SPREADING THE REPORT THAT SHRIMPS AND LOBSTERS ARE TO CHANGE PRICES EVERY OTHER DAY

ran Rags’ best effort (Ginger helped him with the spelling).

A FALSE WHISPER HAS GOT ABROAD THAT THE BENCHES AS WELL AS THE WICKET-KEEPERS IN LORD’S CRICKET GROUND ARE TO BE PADDED THIS SEASON

(This was the Taxi-Man’s.)

WE HAVE IT ON THE VERY BEST AUTHORITY THAT OLIVE AND MYRTLE TREES WILL NOT BE PLANTED FROM END TO END OF THE CITY ROAD

(Tonio.)

THE ANNOUNCEMENT THAT SKY-ROCKETS ARE TO BE LET OFF EVERY SATURDAY NIGHT ON STREATHAM COMMON CAN OBVIOUSLY ONLY BE REGARDED AS A PRACTICAL JOKE

(The Balloon Woman.)

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?

(asked the Pavement Artist--)

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE FABULOUS ASSERTION THAT THE LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA WILL PERFORM DURING THE LUNCHEON HOUR AT SAM ISAAC’S FISH-SHOPS?

One after another these seeds bore fruit--and as many other seeds, all bearing on the comfort or the gaiety of the Metropolis.

It was the Punch-and-Judy Man who, affected by the weariness of the City Clerks waiting an hour in queue to book their tickets in the Tubes, induced Madame Clara Butt, Sir Harry Lauder, and Mdlle. Adeline Genée, to attend the principal stations at going-home time, and relieve the tedium with song and dance. It only wanted suggesting to these kind-hearted artists that nobody expected such a thing of them. They responded at once.

It was a still greater surprise when Sir Joseph Lyons, after Jeremy’s emphatic assertion to the contrary, opened a Free-Penny-Bun-Shop on the Embankment for children under twelve with an income of less than Twopence a Week.

London was becoming a really beautiful place to live in.

But while the General Public grew daily more responsive to the nocturnal suggestions of Gypsy, Ginger, and their friends, the Authorities began to take alarm. Reforms were occurring at a pace which made them giddy. And London was acquiring a taste for Initiative which bothered them. Initiative was their feudal prerogative. They had given it a good run for its money in 1066, and now, like an old blind petted house-dog, kept it tenderly on the Westminster hearthrug, and gave it soft sops for its aged gums. Yet somehow this summer it had escaped and run amok: they heard it barking like a young pup, and saw it wag its tail in every street. And wherever it went London voluntarily arrayed herself in Couleur de Rose. The Authorities had always preferred her in the stronger tone of Red Tape. They had been saying to her for so many years, “Red is your Colour, dear,” that she nearly believed it, and they did quite.

So they sent to Scotland Yard for a Policeman, and gave him a Roving Commission. Policemen are generally born to their Beat; it is extremely difficult to disattach any of these men from his walk in life, and, in the older Constabulary families, where the Beat is entailed, it is impossible. But now and again a Younger Son is born for whom it is awkward to provide. One of these was hanging around the Yard that summer, and it was he who was told off to perambulate London at his own free will, and discover the conspiracy that was turning sacred institutions topsy-turvy. At head-quarters the conspirators were registered as The Moonshiners.

Lionel was enchanted with his job.

It was Gypsy who was the first to scent a public danger at large in lamplit London. The Regular Policeman is not the public danger you might suppose. He goes like a metronome, and you have only to time his beat. Between his two appearances practically anything can be done. But the Roving Constable is another question altogether. At any moment he may take you by surprise, like a rainbow in April.

He took Gypsy by surprise outside a baker’s shop in Kentish Town, opposite a Bus-stop. That night Gypsy was making a round of the Bus-stops, denying a rumour that Moving Staircases were being contemplated by the Omnibus Companies to Save the Conductresses’ Feet. Gypsy had just let the Regular Policeman go by, and was about to paint his sign in peacock blues and greens on the baker’s window, when Lionel tapped him on the shoulder.

“Wot are you doing here?” said Lionel. It is the first question given under the heading “Burglars” in the _Policeman’s Guide to Conversation_.

Gypsy was used to taking situations in at glances. He instantly saw that the whole fabric of the Moonshiners was threatened, and he answered with great presence of mind,

“I am trying to steal a plum cake.”

“Wot for?” said Lionel.

“Because I could do with it,” said Gypsy engagingly. And it was true. Gypsy never paused to consider his interior without discovering that he could do with plum cake.

“’Ow were you thinking of stealing it?” asked Lionel.

“I was going to try to smash the window,” said Gypsy.

“I’m serprised at you,” said Lionel sternly. “Think of the row you’d ’ave made, and everybody tired out wanting their night’s rest.”

“I should have tried to smash it quietly,” said Gypsy.

“I’m serprised at you,” said Lionel still more sternly. “You might ’ave cut your pore ’and.”

He put his own hand in his pocket and gave Gypsy sixpence. “Now don’t you go making no more disturbances,” he said. “There’s a coffee stall up the street, second on the left. Move on.”

“Robert,” said Gypsy warmly, “where do you live?”

“Winchester Mews, N.W. 3,” said Lionel, “and my name’s Lionel. Move on.”

“It’s no name for the Beaten Track,” said Gypsy thoughtfully.

“I don’t follow no Beaten Track,” said Lionel. “All London’s my Beat, and the Moonshiners is my mark. And as sure as my name’s wot it is, one of these fine nights I’ll run ’em to earth.”

“Wouldn’t it be better,” said Gypsy, looking at the moon, “to run them to heaven?”

“Wot do you take me for?” asked Lionel with dignity. “A member of the Air-Force? Move on.”

Gypsy moved on, drank his coffee and ate his slab of cake in Lionel’s name, and hurried back to do his sign. But instead of saying “The Conductresses’ Feet” it now said,

THE CONDUCTRESSES’ POOR FEET

This human note (due entirely to Lionel) touched the General Omnibus Co.’s heart, and it convened a Board-Meeting on the spot. But long before that Gypsy had hastened home and conveyed the tidings to his fellow-conspirators. He was always a little excitable in telling a tale, and he swore that as Lionel left him he threw behind him on the pavement the shadow, not of a man, but of Scotland Yard, which by some trick of the moon with a cloud changed to the shadow of a Handley-Page, and finally spread itself to the semblance of a flying angel.

Mrs. Green said, “You and your fancies, nonsense!”

But the Night Watchman said, “Of course. A human being can throw any shadow he pleases, or doesn’t please. If you want to know a man, look at his shadow by moonlight.”

Everybody began at once to look at everybody else’s shadow, and to hide his own; and for a little while the shadows flickered over Trafalgar Square like flowers in the wind, and birds on the wing, and swimming fish. Just as you thought you had a man he would slip his shadow into that of Nelson, or a Lion, or a Church, or a Hotel, or the National Gallery, and you lost him. Shadow Hide-and-Seek became rather a favourite pastime round the Weatherhouse after this.

But to-night the Taxi-Man soon called them to order.

“Enough of shadows,” he commanded. “We’re up against a danger, and it’s got to be tackled. If our work’s to go on, Lionel must be diddled.”

“But who’s to diddle him?” asked Ginger.

“The Picadilly Flower-Girls,” said the Taxi-Man.

The Piccadilly Flower-Girls were fascinating people with fragrant names like Lily, Rose and Violet. It was these damsels, or their grand-mothers, whom the Taxi-Man declared he had delivered from dragons during the Discovery of London. They would, he said, do anything for him.

“Out of sheer gratitude?” asked Ginger.

“Not a bit of it,” said the Taxi-Man. “Out of sheer joy. And if Lionel can resist ’em, he’s not the Roving Policeman I take him to be.”

“Lionel mustn’t be hurt,” said Gypsy. “I love Lionel, and if the pillar-box runs to it I’m going to leave a Buszard Cake on his Winchester Mews doorstep to-morrow. It will be a plum cake with almond icing, and I shall have it frosted an inch thick, with pink sugar doves, and LIONEL done on it in silver balls, like bits of quicksilver on the carpet when you break the puzzle by accident.”

“I used to break it on purpose,” said Ginger. “Mother always said I mustn’t eat them.”

“Good gracious, I should think not!” said Gypsy.

“I mean the silver balls,” said Ginger. “I don’t know why, but I was never allowed to eat the silver balls till I was ten years old.”

“She was afraid of you choking,” said Mrs. Green.

“I knows a perfickly wunnerful cure for hiccups,” mentioned Rags.